Soulmate
by aggroon
Summary: Every day since she left, the hero could only think of her.


He stared up at the moon in the clear star-filled sky.

It reminded him of the mirror, from its shape to its glimmering brightness.

And also by how far away it was.

Shifting slightly on his cross-legged position on his bed, the man stared out the window, looking over the trees and to the rest of Ordon Village. He could see the waterwheel slowly turning, and if he strained, he could hear the rush of the river.

It was home, that was true, and after he had adventured all over Hyrule, the hero had missed the bed he sat on and the village he had grown up on him. Now, though, as he was seated in his home, the man felt only what could be known as pining.

He missed her.

She had been his all in the short time that he had known her. The hero wasn't quite sure what she had been to him; didn't know what word he could have used to describe her. Friend? No, that was not enough. Partner? Yes, in a manner, but more than that. Unwelcome imp? That solicited a small smile from him. Well, yes, at first.

But what did he call someone who he had cared for as she lay on the brink of death? Someone who then saved him, in turn? No, words were not enough.

He brought himself away from the window, pondering his conundrum. The hero was a farm boy, born and raised a long horse ride away from the capital. He was sure he could never put a word to what she had been to him.

Lying down on his bed, the man gazed up at the wooden ceiling as the gentle night breeze carressed his face.

It had been a year since she had shattered the mirror, their only means of ever being able to even entertain the thought of meeting again. Still, the hero nursed the moment in his heart. He knew dwelling on it would not piece together the shards of what had been broken, but still he tried. Oh, how he tried.

He'd been to the Grounds so many times after the shattering. Without her, it was a long, hard slog through biting desert winds and through the empty husk of the ancient prison. Although the great skeleton beast had long left, it still wore him out immensely to even make it through the place.

All this to see the mirror.

The hero always piled a satchel full of food and drink to survive the harsh desert, and when he eventually came to the chamber that the mirror was, the hero would spend at least three days there. Wandering the length of the chamber, exploring every crevice of the giant rock slab that had held the entrance to the realm where the twilight princess reigned and, finally, devoting his attention to what had once been the Mirror of Twilight.

The man conjured up fantasies of remaking the mirror; dreamed of finding some other way to reach her, and yet even as he tried so hard to imagine it, he knew it was impossible.

Seeing her again was impossible.

He restlessly turned over to his side. This always happened at night. He would think of her, then be unable to rest as his mind tried so her to see her again.

Enough.

The man abruptly jolted upright, cracking his neck. Even though he couldn't see again, maybe, somehow, there was away to put his fevered heart at rest.

He clambered down the ladder from his bed to the entrance of his house. There was a block of wood he had grabbed yesterday after a brief trip into the Faron Woods with Epona. The man had initially intended to try and carve a wooden sword for the old swordsman's son with it, but he now had a different idea. He absentmindedly hoped that the boy wouldn't mind waiting a while longer.

Picking it up from where it rested against a chest, the man also grabbed a small dagger. Heading down into the basement where he had stored all his gear from his adventure with a block of wood in one arm and a knife in his mouth was rather difficult, but the athletic man managed it with no trouble.

There was chest down here in the darkness, and the hero knew where it lay by heart. Putting the wood and knife down on the floor, the man opened a chest. Brushing aside the neatly folded tunic of green that he had worn what seemed to him so long ago, the hero hoisted up a large oil lamp and lit it.

It was bright enough for him to do what he wanted to do now. There was something about this basement where he could be surrounded by all his old gear that made the hero feel at ease. He had returned the sword that the guardians of the Sealed Grounds had let him take, but almost everything else was down here.

With the flickering light of the lamp, he could make out the shape of a massively heavy ball and chain. The hero smiled faintly. Even for someone like him, it had been murder to carry. Right next to it, the boomerang that smelled of spring and of a refreshing breeze. And there, hanging on the wall, was the shield that had faithfully kept him from harm.

Thinking that he really should get a proper lamp for the basement, the hero shook his head with a grin and got to work with his knife on the wood while sitting on the chest.

He whittled through the whole night. The piece of wood slowly took on the shape of what could only be called a potato. The hero fashioned crude holes and a mouthpiece into it, hollowing out as best he could, The instrument he made would have a craftsman cry upon seeing it, but he didn't care as long as it worked.

The hero tried a few test blows, and was pleased at how it sounded. It was far from the best, he knew, but it wasn't the point. He modelled it after a legendary instrument he had seen a statue in the castle hold, and hoped that his would too.

At long last, long after the sun had risen, the hero blew out the light. He was done, and with impeccable timing, too. As he sheathed the knife and stood up, he heard the door to his home open. Climbing up the ladder with his little instrument in hand, he saw the old swordsman entering. Before the older man could say anything, the hero shook his head.

Taking a deep breath, the hero held up the instrument and took a few moments to compose himself. And finally, when he was ready, the hero remembered a haunting tune that had seemed to fill his thoughts whenever he had set eyes on the one he had no word for. A melody that seemed to embody her whole self flooded into the hero's mind.

With his eyes closed, Link played Midna's Theme.


End file.
